Trainer French savors every moment in return from illness

ARCADIA, Calif. – Neil French refuses to miss a race at Santa Anita these days. From a stakes to a modest maiden claimer, French wants to see it all.

“I don’t want to stay home,” he said on a recent morning. “I’ve been going every day.”

Year-round racing four days a week might be monotonous to some, but for French, who has trained in Southern California since the 1970s, all racing is appreciated right now.

Last September, French, 62, was having a routine morning in the Santa Anita stables when he fell on a concrete drain and suffered a severely broken hip. While hospitalized, he underwent a second operation on his colon. After the operation, he suffered a reaction that left him in a coma.

“My body just kind of shut down,” French said. “It was too much stress from two operations and a combination of the medicines. I didn’t have a heart attack or a stroke.”

At one stage, French was later told, the situation was so grave that hospital officials contacted his 85-year-old mother, Loretta, in Wisconsin.

“They wanted to take me off life support,” French said. “She said, ‘I’m not ready for that.’ One of the nurses later told me they were 30 or 40 seconds from stopping to try and revive me.”

French emerged from the coma, but his physical condition was so poor that he remained hospitalized through the fall before he was transferred to a rehabilitation facility in Pasadena to continue recovery. The hospitalization and recovery lasted until mid-April.

At the first opportunity, French returned to the racetrack, even while he still was spending nights at the rehab facility. On Friday, French will have his first runner since the hip injury when Wanstead Gardens starts in an optional claimer on turf.

In recent weeks, French has been a constant at Santa Anita. He uses a scooter-style wheelchair in the mornings to watch workouts, primarily taking in the activity of all the runners. Wanstead Gardens was the only horse in his care upon his return.

“This week, I have three more coming in,” he said.

French uses a walker to get around his house but will use the scooter while he continues rehabilitation for his hip. The recovery has been complicated by rheumatoid arthritis in his left knee, which French has fought for years. All of that adds to a struggle he is willing to endure, considering his mind-set a few months ago.

“It was really tough,” he said. “It was a slow process. I was in the hospital for three months. I went to a rest home in Pasadena for four months. I never got out of bed. I wasn’t real confident I’d get out of the rest home. I get a little stronger each week. I have to be careful I don’t fall again.”

Through his absence, French’s connection to the racetrack remained strong. Patty Johnson, a former trainer who works as a bookkeeper for trainers, helped French with day-to-day needs. French said frequent phone calls from colleagues such as Richard Mandella and John Sadler were a boost to morale.

French is a second-generation horse trainer. His late father, Arden, trained at Los Alamitos and Caliente in Tijuana, Mexico. French began training on his own in 1976, having worked with his father in the preceding years.

In his nearly 40-year career, French has trained such runners as Pencil Point, the winner of the 1982 Bing Crosby Handicap at Del Mar; Young Flyer, who won the fillies’ division of the 1986 California Breeders’ Champion Stakes at Santa Anita; and Celestic Night, who won the C.B. Afflerbaugh Stakes at Fairplex Park in 2010.

“Even for a small stable, I’ve had one or two decent horses,” he said. “I’ve been fortunate over the years.”

Wanstead Gardens was his most recent winner at Del Mar last September, just 10 days before the accident in the stable. Winning with the same horse Friday would be a fitting start to a comeback that cannot arrive fast enough.

“The horse should be one of the favorites in there,” French said. “I’m really looking forward to it.”